What's a good multi-tasking laptop?

I'm looking to replace one of my laptops, a HP HDX16. I'm in need of a new machine that can handle running various resource heavy programs simultaneously. For example, I'm usually running Photoshop CS4, Windows Media Player, TweetDeck, FilaZilla, Microsoft Word and Google Chrome with around 4-5 tabs open at the exact same time. I edit a lot of photos, design logos and blog, so the machine needs to be able to keep up with me. The laptop I have now, which is packaged with an Intel Core 2 Duo T9900, an Nvidia GeForce 130M video card, 6 gigs of RAM, an 320GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, a Blu-Ray drive and a backlit keyboard, has held up great and has done a good job at handling the load, but after 4 years I think it's time to replace it with something a little more updated. Not to mention, the monitor recently crapped out on me, forcing me to use an external for now, and it tends to overheat quite often. I have a PC so the laptop won't be my only machine, but it will be used more then the PC for work, so it basically needs to be as powerful as a desktop.

My budget is around $2K. I would of course prefer to spend less but understand that good multi-tasking laptops don't come cheap. If somebody could point me in the direction of some good laptops, I would greatly appreciate it.

I would take a look at Lenovo, Toshibia and Asus in that order, out of all the laptops I work on they are just plain deigned to work well and last. Where HP's are designed to work for 3 years and then fail so you can buy a new one.

What's its main purpose? Would it be used to store the OS or for saving files/programs?

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You can use it as your primary drive assuming you have enough space. Current price is about 120gb for $100ish.

Performance on an SSD is the biggest, noticable performance increase most people can/will see when doing non gaming related tasks.

The only really intensive apps you listed are Adobe apps, so you will want to feed it as much CPU, and memory as possible. A faster HDD will make opening/save times a good bit faster, and the system will just feel significantly snappier.

Assuming you are using CS5/CS6, you can also get more benefits out of using a GOOD video card, too, so don't use the Intel integrated. Get atleast a mid-line GPU for professional work. Depending on your battery needs, ofcourse.

If you don't need significant battery life, you can go with a higher end MSI/Sager, and get a power house of a laptop for around $1500. You lost significant portability and battery life though. Life tethered is a huge performance increase at the cost of mobility.

Going for power, the MSI GT60 series (15", 1920x1080 screen) can be loaded with a GTX670m, a 2.2-3.0 i7, and 16gb+ of ram.

It allows a configuration of SSD primary OS, and a HDD for bulk storage, as well as a CDROM.

You can use it as your primary drive assuming you have enough space. Current price is about 120gb for $100ish.

Performance on an SSD is the biggest, noticable performance increase most people can/will see when doing non gaming related tasks.

The only really intensive apps you listed are Adobe apps, so you will want to feed it as much CPU, and memory as possible. A faster HDD will make opening/save times a good bit faster, and the system will just feel significantly snappier.

Assuming you are using CS5/CS6, you can also get more benefits out of using a GOOD video card, too, so don't use the Intel integrated. Get atleast a mid-line GPU for professional work. Depending on your battery needs, ofcourse.

If you don't need significant battery life, you can go with a higher end MSI/Sager, and get a power house of a laptop for around $1500. You lost significant portability and battery life though. Life tethered is a huge performance increase at the cost of mobility.

Going for power, the MSI GT60 series (15", 1920x1080 screen) can be loaded with a GTX670m, a 2.2-3.0 i7, and 16gb+ of ram.

It allows a configuration of SSD primary OS, and a HDD for bulk storage, as well as a CDROM.

Will there be any added benefit to picking a more powerful processor, say a 2.6-3.6 over a 2.2-3.0?

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If you are using photoshop, you will have a faster/more responsive effect application (Open task monitor on a secondary screen while editing a photo, and watch the graph.)

The actual time difference between a 2.3 Vs a 2.5 will probably not be much, but a 2.3 Vs a 3.0 would be significant.

With GPU acceleration assisting, a 2.3 should suffice if you want to keep the price down. if you have the money to spend, get the 2.7, because it has an additional 2MB of cache. $530 is a pretty whopper of a difference though, i would get the 2.3.

If you are using photoshop, you will have a faster/more responsive effect application (Open task monitor on a secondary screen while editing a photo, and watch the graph.)

The actual time difference between a 2.3 Vs a 2.5 will probably not be much, but a 2.3 Vs a 3.0 would be significant.

With GPU acceleration assisting, a 2.3 should suffice if you want to keep the price down. if you have the money to spend, get the 2.7, because it has an additional 2MB of cache. $530 is a pretty whopper of a difference though, i would get the 2.3.

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Yea, just notice that price

MSI is a good company when it comes to laptops? Never heard of them. Then again, I'm not a big computer guy, I just know how to use them.

I used to own a Sager, and I have used 2 different MSI models, the GT60 and the sandy-bridge model before it. They are solid laptops

MSI is one of the bigger component manufacturers(motherboard/GPU), but their laptops are definitely one of their best.

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Their all-in-one pc's look pretty cool. I know this is about laptops, but any thoughts on those?

One of the main reasons I'm looking for a laptop is cause I'm using it in an area of the house that doesn't have room for a tower. I have a main desktop somewhere else, which I may be looking to replace soon as well, but the MSI All-In-One PC's look like a nice alternative for the laptop, if they're just as powerful. I notice though that they only come equipped with an i5 processor and only allow for up to 8GB of RAM.

Trouble with Lenovo is the IBM bloat ware that is usually included with each system. One of the better systems for portables that I have seen is Asus. They don't have a bunch of bloat ware installed slowing the system down, usually have the ability to upgrade the video card where a lot of the other builders the video card is imbedded into the motherboard leaving the end user unable to upgrade the video card. A lot of the upper Asus models allow for two hard drives to be installed giving the user the opportunity to either RAID a pair of mechanical hard drives, have an SSD and a larger drive for storage, or using dual SSD's in a RAID for security or larger capacity.

How often do you use this laptop and how often do you pick it up and move it, because the most you pick it up the more will wish it was lighter if you get a 17" laptop. If it isn't going to move much, go for a 17. Also in addition to an SSD, I would go with a smaller SSD and keep an SSD in the second bay if you choose a laptop with two drive bays. But like with anything else, it costs money so it really depends on how much money you want to dump into your laptop.

Trouble with Lenovo is the IBM bloat ware that is usually included with each system. One of the better systems for portables that I have seen is Asus. They don't have a bunch of bloat ware installed slowing the system down, usually have the ability to upgrade the video card where a lot of the other builders the video card is imbedded into the motherboard leaving the end user unable to upgrade the video card. A lot of the upper Asus models allow for two hard drives to be installed giving the user the opportunity to either RAID a pair of mechanical hard drives, have an SSD and a larger drive for storage, or using dual SSD's in a RAID for security or larger capacity.

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I had a system with an MXM slot, and to be honest, it really isn't of any major value unless you upgrade from a low end card to a high end card, and even then you usually don't have the cooling or power capabilities to do so. Having a radeon 6990 won't be out dated by any significant margin, and you'll likely be looking for an IPS screen/faster SSD first.

My beef with the higher end ASUS models is the asthetics, and weird frame design. I just didn't find it comfortable compared to the MSI.

Their all-in-one pc's look pretty cool. I know this is about laptops, but any thoughts on those?

One of the main reasons I'm looking for a laptop is cause I'm using it in an area of the house that doesn't have room for a tower. I have a main desktop somewhere else, which I may be looking to replace soon as well, but the MSI All-In-One PC's look like a nice alternative for the laptop, if they're just as powerful. I notice though that they only come equipped with an i5 processor and only allow for up to 8GB of RAM.

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All in ones are often limited hardware wise as you mention, but may save you money if you do not need portability. For higher end Photoshop you can probably get more screen space (20"+) but if you want to go that route I would consider an iMac possibly(barring OS X/Windows photoshop licensing issues.). They have some beautiful screens.

All in all, though, is an i7 in a Desktop at X.X speed will generally be equivilant to the Mobile version (barring cache changes in the lower end), so just find some specs you want in a form factor that fits your needs.